Do you know how engaged your employees are? If you're not sure, it may be time to take a look at your employee engagement strategies.
First things first: what is employee engagement? Simply put, this refers to how dedicated employees are to their job. An engaged employee doesn't only work for a paycheck—they want to make meaningful contributions to their company.
A proper employee engagement strategy is a multifaceted process. It involves assessing existing issues and working with employees to create solutions. This should be an ongoing commitment—not something you do once and never again.
Not sure where to start? Here are seven time-proven strategies to engage employees and boost their enthusiasm.
1. Measure Employee Engagement
4. Provide Perks and Incentives
5. Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
7. Form an Engagement Committee
More Employee Engagement Strategies
1. Measure Employee Engagement
Before you can start improving employee engagement, you must figure out your baseline. The solution: engagement surveys.
There are plenty of ways you can structure the survey. One popular method involves including statements and having employees rate them on a 1-10 scale. You can also opt for open-ended or multiple-choice questions.
Keep in mind that the survey should address your employees' everyday experiences. This can include anything from interactions with managers to the company mission. To ensure you get honest feedback, make the survey anonymous.
To get an even clearer picture of which areas you need to work on, take the engagement survey yourself. This employee engagement survey is a good starting point.
2. Foster Work-Life Balance
Stress and burnout are two key factors in disengagement at work. The best way to combat them is to maintain good work-life balance practices.
One workplace strategy that always works here is promoting flexibility. You can allow employees to work from home, provide paid parental leave, or have a generous PTO policy. These methods carry a cost, but they're often preferable to replacing employees.
If you have remote employees, make them a part of the corporate culture. For example, using videoconferencing can help people feel like part of a team. Also, all your employees should get the same perks, regardless of where they are.
3. Consider Your Core Values
By 2025, Millenials should represent 75% of the workforce. In other words, building trust with them will only help you in the long run.
If we know one thing about Millenials, it's that they love social responsibility. More than any other age group out there, they want to work for companies that share their values. Not only that—they want to be active participants in their company's mission.
This is why your business should have clear core values and a strong social purpose. If you're lacking in this department, have your employees help with creating them. Other than improving your retention rate, you'll be making the world a better place.
4. Provide Perks and Incentives
Employee engagement is all about going above and beyond. If your employees only do the bare minimum, make work worth their time.
The simplest way to do that is to offer employee perks and incentives. This can include things like gym discounts, wellness checks, and happy hours. Providing these perks proves you're invested in your employees' personal and professional success.
To improve on your employee relationships further, consider office amenities as well. Make sure you know what your employees need to be more comfortable during the workday. This can be anything from good coffee to bringing their pet to work.
While you're at it, rethink your office space design. Bright, modern spaces with space for collaboration can do wonders for employee engagement.
5. Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
The more diverse your team is, the better it will perform. This is true for pretty much every metric, from age and gender to race and ethnicity.
There are plenty of studies that show why diversity is great for your bottom line. Even beyond analytics, though, having a team with different backgrounds makes sense. It discourages groupthink and better represents your customer base.
The important thing to note here is that diversity in hiring isn't enough. Each of your employees must feel that their contributions are equally valued. This means prioritizing fair compensation and transparency in decision-making.
6. Make Work More Fun
One great way to keep employees invested is to give them a breather from time to time. For example, by hosting employee engagement activities.
This can be something as simple as running a monthly scavenger hunt or trivia game. For a more ambitious effort, consider going with an annual office Olympics event. You can also organize a learn-at-lunch program as a more relaxed training activity.
At the very least, you should celebrate birthdays and other milestones. Recognizing important events in your employees' lives lets them know you value them beyond the workplace. You can even turn these events into themed dress-up days.
If you're planning on hosting these activities, schedule them during the workday. Doing so after-hours defeats the point of the activity.
7. Form an Engagement Committee
Finally, consider giving your staff a say in fostering employee engagement. This allows you to learn from those in the trenches.
One method of doing this is to form an engagement committee. Ask for volunteers first—if someone wants to join, they're likely invested in your company. If there are empty slots, fill them with hard workers who are well-liked by their coworkers.
The committee's mission is to develop solutions to any engagement issues you're facing. They can have discussions with their peers about what the workplace needs. They'll also need to make sure that most suggested changes get implemented.
More Employee Engagement Strategies
Keeping employees engaged is about more than making them feel like a member of a company. It's also about finding their place in a community.
The engagement strategies we described can help you create this kind of workplace. They'll give your staff more opportunities to engage in meaningful tasks and interactions. As a result, they'll be more dedicated to your company's success.
If you need an employee engagement consultant to help you execute those strategies, we can help you! Contact us right here—we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
